Barry Gibb visited my kids’ primary school yesterday… Oswald Road in Chorlton. He’s an ex-pupil. I’ve got 3 kids at the school but I only heard about the impending visitation because my 9-year-old muttered to me on Friday evening “We’re… Read more ›
Breakout has got to be one of the most perfect pop records to come out of Manchester… but because Swing Out Sister didn’t gig, I had no idea they had links with the local scene when I bought their singles… Read more ›
Manchester International Festival (MIF) is like a bluebottle which lands on a cow’s head and poos before buzzing off across the field. The cow (the city) may have dimly registered the bluebottle’s presence and possibly found it irritating. Meanwhile the… Read more ›
The Smiths meant a great deal to me in 1983 for some reason… But what were they on about? What were they telling us thirty years ago? ‘This Charming Man’, their second single, was the first Smiths song I bought…… Read more ›
The Tamworth Estate tower blocks lie within the borough of Trafford, even though they share the east side of Chorlton Road (B5218) with Manchester’s Hulme, M15. Their ‘brutalist’ architectural style has more in common with 1970s Hulme, now gone, than… Read more ›
I bought this ticket on a friend’s recommendation in 2012, but have since realised that I don’t like Alt-J. Not only is their sound very contrived, but their lyrics are about the glamour of violence, in particular violence against women.… Read more ›
When Sankey Soap opened in the mid-90s there was general excitement about this brave new venue popping up in Ancoats’ industrial hinterland. I was really impressed with the club back then, but its remoteness was always a worry… there were… Read more ›
I first met Goths in 1982, although I probably thought they were “Punks” at the time… and maybe they did too. Their appearance was dramatic: pale faces, black eye-liner, dark clothes - pre-Raphaelite-witchy-hippy-punks - Laura Ashley’s evil siblings. One Goth… Read more ›
Throughout the 1980s, I admired second-hand fake “leopard-skin” coats but never found one which passed muster. There was always something not quite right…. a bad fit, too frumpy, tatty, smelly, or just too trashy… Then, around 1990, I stumbled across… Read more ›
The BBC began to consider proposals for a TV and radio headquarters in Manchester in 1953. In 1967, Manchester Corporation suggested the All Saints Oxford Road site and obtained a compulsory purchase order but didn’t settle with all former owners… Read more ›
Belated review of Plug In, Tune Out with David Byrne, Mark Mulligan and Dave Haslam: Does music matter less in the current era? Royal Northern College Of Music, 25th October 2012. David Byrne in discussion with Dave Haslam at the… Read more ›
December 2012 was the Month Of The Rat in my house: two of my kids, along with 88 others, have been performing in Rats’ Tales at The Royal Exchange Theatre. Consequently I’ve seen the show a few times; the reviews… Read more ›
